The new Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is not a bad graphics card; it delivers a 1080p gaming experience and the best features of the Ada Lovelace architecture, including DLSS 3, to long suffering gamers who are waiting for an upgrade at a worldly price. We have brought it down to a price point that appeals to them.

The problem is that it doesn't do enough to impress in the way it should. It's all about the name and the price. The underlying AD107 GPU should be called RTX 4050 if it follows the product positioning of its GA107 predecessor. If it did, and was priced at $249 or even less, it would have received a very different rating.

But it is what it is, and at $299 the RTX 4060 is still a good upgrade if you are upgrading from a card that is a few years old. But it's hard to forget the RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT, and given the current pricing, one can still make a compelling argument.

Still, even at $299, the RTX 4060 is likely to be mass-marketed, with many partner cards to choose from, ranging from reference prices to mega-overkill triple-fan, triple-slot cards; Zotac's GeForce RTX 4060 OC Spider -Man belongs to the former category, featuring a smart design and adequate cooling. Spider-Man" Yes, this is a special edition RTX 4060 that will especially appeal to web-slinger fans. And there are many of you out there.

The Zotac RTX 4060 Spider-Man is essentially a base-level card, and that's good enough for me. But I don't think a 115W TDP card needs expensive, extra features like a gazillion phase PCBs or a monster cooler that does nothing. Mainstream gamers will plug into this card and forget about it. But as its name suggests, this Zotac is a little different.

Zotac is clearly proud of its Spider-Man brand. Specifically, the popular animated film Across the Spider-Verse. It comes with a selection of Spidey merchandise, including stickers, stickers, and even a selection of fan-centered items Zotac also bundles its own Ztorm figurines. It is unfortunate that the more expensive RTX 40 series Spider-Man cards do not have the Spider-Man backplate offered, but if you are a Super Web Slinger fan, this Zotac would be a cool addition to your Spidey memorabilia collection. I think the box design deserves a special mention.

Aside from the Spider-Man branding, the rest of the card is a pretty standard RTX 4060. At the heart of the card is the AD107 GPU, built on TSMC's custom 4N process, with 24 streaming multiprocessors (SM), 3072 CUDA cores, 24 RT cores, and 96 Tensor cores. These core counts are lower than the RTX 3060 12GB.

As with all RTX 4060s, having only 8GB of VRAM and a 128-bit bus is disappointing, despite ostensibly being a mid-range graphics card The RTX 3060 has 12GB with a 192-bit bus, giving it a capacity and bandwidth, it is hard to get past the fact that the RTX 3060 had the edge in both capacity and bandwidth.

Nvidia states that 24MB of L2 cache (versus the RTX 3060's 3MB) will greatly reduce VRAM calls and reliance on large memory buffers, given that 15 years ago there were 512-bit bus cards, No matter how you slice it, it's cut corners.

If the underlying performance of the RTX 4060 is not overwhelming, the addition of DLSS 3 with frame generation could help; the performance gains of DLSS 3 do not turn the card into something natively twice as fast, but it is plagued with slowdowns below 60 fps, which and need an additional boost to enter the realm of smooth gameplay, especially if you have to enable demanding ray-tracing effects, which is great.

It works well when DLSS 3 and frame generation are supported. However, it is not the all-conquering technology that Nvidia says it is, as it requires support for each game. Maybe someday it will be.

Other notable specs include a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface and an excellent TDP of 115 W. The RTX 4060's performance per watt is outstanding, meaning that the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector is unnecessary; a single 8-pin connector is sufficient.

The Zotac RTX 4060 Spider-Man card is a well-made card overall, with dual fans, a full-length backplate, and a primarily dark gray design. It features a factory overclock of 15 MHz lower than the base-spec RTX 4060; three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 connector are included.

The compact dual-fan cooler has a zero-rev mode and occupies two slots. It is definitely suitable for small form factors as it is not a cheeky 2.5 slot. Its 223mm length isn't the shortest you'll come across, but that's okay. Interestingly, there is quite a bit of free space at the end of the shroud; the PCB does not protrude from the PCIe slot connectors.

Don't forget to download Zotac's FireStorm control utility if you want to overclock or tweak fan speeds.

1080p gaming and 3DMark performance

1440p gaming performance

System performance

The Zotac RTX 4060 has the same core as the MSI RTX 4060 Ventus 2X we reviewed at launch clock, so the performance of the two cards is almost within the margin of error.

The RTX 4060 is most satisfying at 1080p and can run most games at high settings. However, the most demanding titles require a little less ray tracing or AA to stay at the 60 fps mark or improve the low end by 1%.

At 1440p, the RTX 4060's limitations become apparent: with DLSS and Frame Generation on, it's good enough for 1440p, but not enough horsepower to run everything at max, unless you play games with huge textures that strain the 8GB frame buffer. Unless.

The card most comparable to the Zotac and other RTX 4060s is the Radeon RX 7600. For ray-tracing games, the RTX 4060 is a generation ahead of AMD, but the RX 7600 is nearly equal in raster performance, which is absolutely critical, especially in esport and older titles where ray tracing does not make sense.

As for thermal performance, the card never exceeded 64°C, low enough to keep the boost clock on the card well above its rated level. Although I used a test bench free from the constraints of a cramped case, the noise level of the card was quite noticeable; Zotac has clearly programmed its coolers to operate with a bias toward low temperatures rather than minimizing fan noise.

If you value quietness above all else, the Zotac is not for you. It is not noisy by any means, but there are quieter alternatives. I would prefer a couple of degrees higher temperature and a dB or two lower noise level. Of course, you can adjust the fan speed yourself to suit your needs.

In conclusion, I first return to the introduction. This is basically a good card, if only Nvidia had released it as a $229-250 RTX 4050 instead of a $299 RTX 4060. Zotac's Spider-Man flavor is a very power efficient GPU, and for users with cards from a few years ago It would be a good upgrade, though.

This frameslinger has good cooling performance, but its fan speeds are noticeable. However, with gunshots, explosions, and headphones worn, it won't bother you one bit. The speed can also be adjusted slightly to suit your preference.

Two RTX 4060s were tested, the other being the MSI Ventus 2X used for the launch review. But on the other hand, Zotac has ... Spiderman.

As a kid, I loved Spider-Man and my inner geek was impressed by the stickers and especially the gorgeous box. If that means anything to you, the Zotac RTX 4060 Spider-Man is pretty cool, both literally and figuratively.